~ Exploring the human-canine bond

(Re)Establishing Routine

It is so, so, so good to be home. I am only just starting to unwind after my trip, and yesterday and today have found myself deeply tired and headachy. As such, I’ll keep this entry short, but I wanted to write to get back into the practice of making regular entries. I am hoping that from here on in, I’ll be able to make time to write regularly.

This morning I took the dogs for a wonderful hike in ‘our’ conservation area. It was raining and cool, and not surprisingly we were the only ones there. There is almost always a car in the parking lot when we arrive these days, regardless of what time we show up. If the place gets too busy I’ll likely have to stop taking all four dogs at the same time. Hopefully that won’t happen soon. Plus the dogs have been really behaving themselves well, so perhaps I can keep going with the whole crew. It sure makes a difference to my day if I can exercise them all at the same time. Otherwise it takes over my life.

Yesterday I had an agility lesson. We’re training outside now, which is great. We’re still working on contacts with Hannah, who is clearly bored out of her skull with this exercise. My instructor observed this as well, and decided to move us forward. We’re now working on the teeter and sequencing her weaves. She’s doing really well with the weave poles, getting faster and faster each time. She really enjoys that, and doing any kind of fast agility stuff in general. After months and months of nose touches, I can’t say I blame her for wanting to do something more dynamic!

Kess is still being quite a wild and crazy girl, making moving her forward rather difficult. My instructor seems to want us to master the nose touch and contact position before doing anything else, and I don’t know how long that’s going to take with miss Kestrel. She’s brilliant and very mentally composed when in motion, but standing still is not her forté. I have been working on getting her to stay calm while doing some basic training, which she is doing with improvement. But that all went out the window at our lesson yesterday as she gets just so wound up around other people. *sigh* At least I know she’ll do well at herding.

Speaking of which, I must call the farm tomorrow to set up a time to start training again. I had wanted to get right back at it, but had to spend the last two days in town running errands and generally getting caught up in my administrative and professional life. Today I worked from home, and it was wonderful. I don’t think I have anything scheduled again for a week now, which is beyond fantastic. In addition to wanting to get my life in order, and my writing moving forward again, I really want to reduce the stress on Ross. He already seems a bit brighter, and he is less stinky now that he’s running in the woods and swimming again. He has a very thick coat and needs to be running through brush and jumping in ponds to keep himself clean. But he still shouldn’t smell like stinky feet, regardless of how much natural bathing he gets. That’s definitely a sign of him being out of balance.

Tonight I’m going to give him a dose of Calc Carb, either in 200c or perhaps 1M to see if that helps. I think his thyroid is out of whack again (which can be caused by stress), and this may help get it back in balance. If not, he may need to go back on thyroid meds. I’m not opposed to that as they helped tremendously in the past and don’t have any known side effects. But supplementing with a fixed daily dose thyroxine can never accurately simulate a properly functioning thyroid, which adjusts constantly throughout the day.

That’s all for now. I had a million thoughts earlier today but opted to write my dissertation instead of my blog, and now I’m too tired to remember what I wanted to say. I’ll try again tomorrow!